FAR's Gala Tribute honoring Charles Aznavour on May 20th“I am of the opinion that if the current sad state with respect to the preservation of the Armenian language, the establishment of the supremacy of knowledge, the encouragement of reading, and the mass dissemination of literature is ever to change, then it must do so through our own efforts.”
-- Aris Sevag
By Aris Sevag via Ararat Magazine
The following is a translation we made of a text that originally appeared in the Asbarez daily (January 6, 2011, p. 11) by Karen Antashian, a writer and founder of the “Granish”(Letter) literary club, . We have produced the text below to better inform you about the state of Armenian-language literary scene in Armenia today. It is reproduced here with the permission of the author.
Summarizing 2010, it can certainly be said that it was a turning point, and it became the beginning of a qualitatively new stage of development and reevaluation for contemporary Armenian literature. The first reason was the boom in Internet communication, which lifted the literary process that was self-absorbed and stagnated because of the media vacuum in Armenia into the living environment of online dissemination and discussion. During the entire post-Soviet period, modern Armenian literature had never been so close to the wide circles of readers as this year.!